Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-04-28
THE HOME OF BUDDHA.
STRANGE SCENES IN THE ANCIENT
CITY OF BENARES.
worshipers Bathing Together in the
Sacred Waters of the Ganges-The
Bathing Ghats-The Funeral Pyre-The
Priests and Devotees.

worshipers Bathing Together in the
Sacred Waters of the Ganges-The
Bathing Ghats-The Funeral Pyre-The
Priests and Devotees.
About 500 miles from its mouth on the left
bank of the Ganges, the great sacred river OF
the Hindu people, to propitiate which only
few wears ago mothers were wont to offer up
their babes, is the city of idols and the home
of iolatry. Benares 1t is to the Hindu
what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, and
pilgrimage to sometime during his life Is the
necessary Journey of every true Indian pagan.
Though there are no historical records to
prove it, it is generally conceded that it Is one
of the, if not the most ancient city in the
world, and that even when Rome was found
ing Benares was centuries old.
Il is most peculiarly native in its streets, its
buildings and its inhabitants, and, Of all
places in India, it is the place to see the abo-
riginal habits, customs and people. 1t num-
bers its temples in the thousands, but its
shrines are so many that no attempt is made
to number them. The sacred monkey runs
up and down the walls and over the affairs OF
the temple of Durga Kund and the sacred
bulls and COWS wander about that OF Anna
pura and feed on the garlands that the
worshipers cast before them. Just outside
the city is the spot made sacred by Buddha's
presence, and the tanks in which he bathed
himself, his garments, and his religious YES
sels, said to have been protected from the con-
tamination of man by fiery dragons. Benares
is the religious seat of India, and might not
inappropriately be called the capital Of
heathenism.
BENAREs' BATHING CHATS.
But notwithstanding its many temples and
shrines with their wonderful carvings, its
little narrow streets and lofty buildings, its
curious bazaars, by far the most interesting
part of Benares are the bathing CHATS as seen
from boat sailing up and down the sacred
Ganges Here one can spend hours and not
tire, for there is a panorama as changing as
kaleidoscope, and whose pictures are as bril-
liant as an artists imagination can paint
them. for every day large proportion Of the
inhabitants, high caste and low, go down to
the river to bathe in and to worship the divine
stream as it goes rolling on its way to the
ocean. and the banks lined and the water
filed with men, women and children are
sight never to be forgotten.
Here an old, gray haired man feebly washes
his shrunken legs and arms in the cleansing
and divine water At his side stands a young
her body and show perfectly her well formed
limbs. A Hindu dandy, almost naked, sits
only few feet away on the bank combing his
long, oily locks and admiring himself In
little mirror, which he holds in one hand A
powerful, athletic looking man stands not far
away swinging with all his might pair of
primitive Indian clubs, while poor old hag
comes out of the cold water and exposes her
TO- fba raw ff 1a eI1U
Little boys and girls run into the water,
splash about, and then run out again and roll
their wet bodies in the dust or lie down upon
the warm stone steps that lead down to the
water. On the top step sits motionless
chubby infant whose mother has washed him
and set him up there to dry.
A DARK HUED APHRoDITE.
A young girl walks trippingly down to the
edge Of the water and daintily puts her well
shaped foot, the toes Of which are perhaps
covered, though not adorned with rings, into
the water as though to feel it's temperature,
and then suddenly draws it out as if it turned
out to be little cold. But at last she plunges
boldly in, and that wonderful river that has
witnessed more sacrifices or murders than
any other body of water in the world re-
ceives her beneath its surface, above which
second later she emerges like a young mer-
maid and, like the dark hued Aphro6ite,
sbakes the drops of water from her hair.
Down the bank come four men carrying on
a stretcher a dead body, with only cloth
thrown over it, SO thin that through it can be
seen distinctly the outlines of the corpse.
They pile up wood, place the corpse upon it,
pile on more wood, and after few muttered
words light the funeral pyre, while Che friends
and relatives of the dead sit around and watch
the body as it burns in the open air. The
wood drops down and one sees a leg half con-
sumed or an arm burned in two. But the at
tendants pile on more wood and the burning
and the watching go on. When all has been
consumed the last few ashes are cast into the
river Down to the water comes a high caste
Brahmin woman clad in brilliant garments
and attended by numerous servants, for all
alike must bathe in the sacred stream.
At intervals along the bank, on raised plat
forms, sit the priests, by far the most inteli-
gent looking of the great throng. And when
they come out these priests paint the fore
heads Of the devotees with peculiar markings,
accept their offerings and encourage them in
their idolatrous practices. Of they go to
some favorite temple to worship some idol
and make way for the new comers who wish
TO bathe in the sanctifed stream. And the
divine river goes on in its course as it has
done for centuries, receiving the devotions Of
the faithful, who wash themselves in its
waters, and perhaps rejoicing that higher
civilization has put stop to a practice that
made it the unc >nscious cause of many
mothers anguish and worship.-Cawnpore
Cor. Chicago Tribune.